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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27058006">Holes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScissorKidsCult/pseuds/ScissorKidsCult'>ScissorKidsCult</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Draco Angst, Dramione Love, F/M, Memories, Post Battle of Hogwarts, Sadness, Sorrow, canon aligned, dramione - Freeform, dramione angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:14:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,275</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27058006</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScissorKidsCult/pseuds/ScissorKidsCult</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She's moved on, the battle is over, Voldemort is dead, Lucius is dead now too, leaving his son to think back on all the little things those things mean to him.</p><p>"The manor came into view in front of him between squinted eyes. The tears had stopped miles back, but the wind was cutting deep in the early onset of nightfall. He shook his head violently, wishing desperately to get rid of the picture still lingering in his mind. That ridiculous open space. One day he’d be buried in a hole just like it. If there was anything left of him to bury. What happened to people when all their soul was gone? Where would the final shreds of his being go in the afterlife?"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey kiddies, important note here. I know that canonically Xenophilius is not related to Lucius, but the head canon is so exciting to write so I just couldn't help it. And if you're looking for the inspiration for this story look no further than Cody Johnson's Holes, it was the perfect song to base a fic on. Last but not least, yarrow means everlasting love.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It felt heavy in his hands, like the weight of every mistake had taken the shape of a signet ring. The feel of the metal was much worse, like someone had cut him across the knuckle, straight to the bone. His mother had left it for him on the dining room table, along with some long letter about how tradition must be carried on, even in the wake of his fathers death. In the downfall of their family. Abraxas had worn it for decades before passing it to his favored son while he lay dying, and now, with Lucius dead, it was only fitting that Draco take the weight of all the deaths behind it.</p><p>He ran a finger over the raised letter M and looked to his mother’s portrait, to the similar ring sitting on her hand. <em>She</em> would have been the one to take it. It would go to her on the day of their marriage, just as it had gone to Narcissa on the day of her wedding. Instead, it would die with his mother, never to be worn by a Malfoy woman again.</p><p>He could have portkeyed with his mother, but being with her seemed too taxing. A broom ride alone through the countryside might help to clear his mind. Lucius had died suddenly, having taken ill weeks after being locked into Azkaban. There hadn’t been time after the war for them to speak, although Draco was certain he had more to say than his father did. He had so many questions for him and now they would all go unanswered. He hoped that maybe he would be left something in the will, some piece of his father to explain away all of the pain. There was nothing. Just a ring, a fortune, and the empty shell of the fortress they had called home for so long.</p><p>The sky around Draco was cold, sharp against the back of his neck as he pushed through the low clouds. It was fitting that today would be empty. Plenty of funerals after the war were celebrations of life, joyous gatherings of friends come to say goodbye. This day would not resemble those days. It couldn’t. It shouldn’t.</p><p>He watched from afar as the funeral below began to take shape. He couldn’t be late, it would be in poor taste. But he couldn’t seem to put his feet on the ground. What if he fell through? What if he got stuck in the dirt, like his father would be in just a short while? The crowd was small, and though it was painful to see just how few people were moved by the death, it was a relief. He would not have to endure fake smiles or falsely kind words. These people would not lie to him.</p><p>“Hello cousin.” An airy voice crept up behind him as he tucked his broom under a chair, taking a moment to straighten himself out.</p><p>“Good afternoon, Luna.” She was alone, it seemed fitting that Xenophilius would not be in attendance for his brothers funeral. For Salazars sake, he had traded the Malfoy name for Lovegood on his eighteenth birthday. His heritage was not a point of nostalgia. She stepped forward and took his arm in his. She was not dressed in black, rather in some sort of baby blue ensemble. She appeared unaffected, still away in her own little world.</p><p>“The necrofae are here, I think.” She looked up at him, her eyes wide with an everlasting wonder. “Odd to see them at such a late funeral.” The pair greeted Narcissa and then the small group gathered for the proceedings. A few words were said by an officiant. His mother dropped a letter into the coffin. And then it was over. The four of them, Andromeda had arrived late, stood over the gaping space in the ground.</p><p>It was haunting, the earthy swallow beneath his feet. He made his way out quickly, leaving his mother behind in a rush. The image was burned into his mind, it bore a striking resemblance to all the other holes he had carved into his life. Tears streamed down his face as he jogged into the neighboring field, nearly knocking into the ground as he threw himself onto his broom. All those little pieces of his soul that had been cut out so carelessly, all the holes in his being, put there by his father, by Voldemort. By himself. And now they all came to a head, memorialized forever in living color. His fathers gravesite. A meaningless portion of land that would be forever tarnished by the body underneath it. A sore on the surface of the earth.</p><p>The ground below him began to blur as he counted off each individual section of missing soul, just as he had done for so many nights in the immediate aftermath of the war. First there way how it had all begun. It was quick, those first weeks. They had shared their first kiss in the library. It was a fleeting moment of teenage angst and of course the culmination of years of tension. It was private. Perfect. And then the privacy was shattered when his friends caught them together. They were found out on a Wednesday. By Friday night he was called home, held down by his father as the dark mark was branded onto his forearm. He had to choose his alliances, she was less than, a stain on the wizarding world.</p><p>That night in the center of the Malfoy manor, the first hole was hacked into his soul. In the weeks that followed, another would be carved, this one even more painful than the last. It came in the form of the horror on her face, the conflict in her eyes. It came when her friends attacked him, sliced open his skin and left him for dead. It came when she refused to meet his eyes. When his jersey was found on the quidditch field. To his friends it had been a moment of forgetfulness. The thing about it was, that wasn’t his jersey. It was hers, she had cherished it, slept with it. There was a piece of him missing now, from both his life, and hers.</p><p>Then, over a year later the third hole was cut, shot right through the core of his humanity. She lay alone on the floor of his childhood home, her arm splayed out as his aunt carved into her skin. There was the hurt of not being able to help her. One wrong breath would end in the death of his mother, certainly. He didn’t dare wince as the most horribly human cry came up from her place on the ground. He couldn’t turn away as tears ran down her cheeks, cutting through weeks of built up grime. He couldn’t go to her as she broke into a thousand pieces. But separately from it all was the way she didn’t look to him either. She never betrayed him. She never cried out to him, her glassy eyes never turned to him. She took all of that pain alone. Of course how could she have asked him for help, they hadn’t spoken in over a year. But he knew her heart, at least he once did. She took it alone to spare him. It was a knife to his heart, the weight of it all.</p><p>Later that year the final holes began to take their shape. He returned to Hogwarts for the final battle. He physically felt parts of his brain shatter as the blood was spilt. It was all the same. His pureblood friends bled just the same as the classmates he had been asked to hate. There was so much red. And so much of it for nothing. He watched as the last hope was declared dead. Draco listened as his classmate stepped forward, the sword of Gryffindor steady in his once shaky hand. He felt his heart grow cold as his mother and father called out to him. He felt the last piece of his childhood, of his innocence, of his purity, wither and die as Voldemort embraced him in the no mans land.</p><p>The manor came into view in front of him between squinted eyes. The tears had stopped miles back, but the wind was cutting deep in the early onset of nightfall. He shook his head violently, wishing desperately to get rid of the picture still lingering in his mind. That ridiculous open space. One day he’d be buried in a hole just like it. If there was anything left of him to bury. What happened to people when all their soul was gone? Where would the final shreds of his being go in the afterlife?</p><p>Narcissa was waiting, her eyes rimmed with red despite having been dry for a while now. She held his hand, leading him into the threshold of the home. She took him into his fathers study, a place he had never been allowed as a boy. To be in it meant he must be a man. Some change must have occurred. Some shift in life. And while obviously there had been, it just hadn’t resonated yet.</p><p>The room was icy as it loomed around them. Dust had begun to accumulate on the furniture, it was clear no one had been inside the room in a long while. He felt his mothers weak hand stir in his palm. “You’re free.” Narcissa’s voice was shallow, cracking as she smiled weakly at her only child. “It’s over now.”</p><p>—————</p><p>He counted holes for months, each night spent aching alone in the corner of his room. It was especially painful the night his mother brought him a gift. Or rather, what she must have seen as a gift. To Draco it was an insult. She left it for him on the dining table just as she had done with his fathers. Again it was accompanied by a long letter, this time its words spoke of hope. It took weeks to see that maybe she was right.</p><p>It took twice that time to build the courage to seek her out. She had moved on in the world. She was being taken seriously for once, she was amongst peers of a similar caliber. And on top of it all, she was being cherished in a world that had shunned him. It would have been beautifully karmic, the sort of thing poets would write about, if it hadn’t been so painful. He asked Luna where she was residing, and how she could be reached. His cousin was slow to respond, and when she did it was nearly impossible to decipher.</p><p>He wrote letters. Dozens of them. And then finally he had one worth her eyes. He sent it quickly, not allowing himself a moment to second guess. In its envelope he tucked flowers stolen from his mothers garden. There was fern for his humility, purple hyacinth for his sorrow, and blue salvia, he was thinking of her. He spent hours by the window, waiting for her reply.</p><p>When two days had passed and no letter had arrived, he receded into the depths of his room once more. By the time a week had elapsed he was distraught, a shell of the person he was working so hard to become. And then out of the blue, as he lay on his bed in the early afternoon, a knock came at his bedroom door.</p><p>“Draco you have a guest.” He groaned aloud, his hand waving lightly in the air. He sat up slowly as the door creaked open. There, in front of him, her hair wild and her eyes shining she stood with a single stem in her hand. Daffodil.</p><p>“Good afternoon, Malfoy.”</p><p>“Granger.” It was impossible to keep his lips from curling into a smile. The world around him seemed to come alive in that single second. She had come all this way to see him, maybe, just maybe, what was left of him could be forgiven.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Hermione's Side</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Took me longer than I would like to admit to find this piece of the story in my head. Even longer to flush it out and get it on paper. Enjoy.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She waited when the letter first arrived. First, she waited to even touch it, to even put her hands where his had been. Then she let it sit in her bedside drawer, and she waited a few days more. There was so much to think about. What had taken him so long? What could he have to say to her. Hermione had thought endlessly of what she might say to him should they ever meet again, but the idea that maybe he too had something left to share was foreign to her.</p>
<p>The envelope was crisp in her hands, the seal like a coin as she peeled it up. She remembered the letter he had gotten at Hogwarts, the one that called him home to hell. It had something about purity and of course a large letter ‘m’. This one did not, instead it bore the sunken impression of his initials and nothing more.</p>
<p>Flowers slipped out from the envelope first, falling neatly into her lap. He had always adored flowers, they were his mothers favorite pastime. He had promised to take her to his family’s gardens one day, and he had spent hours teaching her what each one meant. She was sure the blue one was salvia, and it hurt so deeply to hold it her palms.</p>
<p>Not that he would ever tell her, or anyone for that matter, but he hadn’t sent flowers since taking the mark. Letters yes, but never flowers. How could he? Narcissa had always included a pink carnation, a mothers undying love. The one that had fallen from the letter calling him home had not come from her gardens, though. It had been a weed, charmed by Lucius. A quick poison to a language he had loved as a boy.</p>
<p>The slope of his script was bittersweet. This was nothing like the letters he had written her before.</p>
<p>
  <em>I was so jealous of you those first years we spent together. Being with you in that library, it was the first time I ever tasted the truth. I didn’t want to be you. I just wanted to be with you. Light spills from you in a way you will never understand, like the sun, or the stars. Potter, Weasley, me, we’re all just moths in your wild universe.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Seeing your eyes dull, that day that you caught a glimpse of my mark. It cut far deeper than he ever did. I was angry at you then, and I stayed angry until that day at the Manor. You laid there as she tried to snuff out that light inside of you but I saw it. You fought so hard, and I saw that fire inside of your heart come to life. You are an undeniable force of nature and I will never escape the guilt of letting someone try to take that from you.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I was so angry, Hermione. I still am. But that hatred never swells for you. Only for myself and the things I wasn’t brave enough to do. I wish all the best for you, even from afar, it is an honor to watch you burn.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>POST TENEBRAS SPERO LUCEM</em>
</p>
<p>The page was blurry when she lifted her head, unaware of herself she had let tears slip over the ink. It was largely unreadable now, but truth be told, she wouldn’t ever forget what he had written.</p>
<p>—————</p>
<p>The door opened slowly and suddenly the bravery she had felt as she walked up to the manor faded away. She felt cold as Narcissa stood in front of her, as if some kind of evil was lurking just beyond the threshold, sucking the warmth from the world.</p>
<p>“She’s gone.” Though a name wasn’t mentioned, the words still meant one all the same. Hermione gave a quick nod, not daring to move despite the reassurance. Instead, the two women stood looking at each other. To any onlooker it would have seemed awkward, but really, it was a careful dance of respect. For Narcissa, it was great blow to her former pride to invite what was once deemed a lesser being into her home, it was a sign of remorse, and personal growth. For Hermione it was the courage and the bravery she was displaying by accepting that invitation.</p>
<p>Once inside the house seemed to blur around her. Younger Hermione would have tried to soak up the knowledge seeping from each line of the house. She would have pondered over the paintings and artifacts lining each wall, she would have committed them to memory, to study later. Instead, as she followed Narcissa through the halls, she tried so hard to ignore them.</p>
<p>This Hermione knew better. Things didn’t mean so much anymore. People were of far more importance; their words, their actions, their stories, the knowledge they themselves possessed. She valued these newfound things more than any book she had ever read. Her eyes did not linger on the library they passed on the way up the stairs. She took no time to stare at the portraits hanging on the walls, or to listen at how they screamed down at her.</p>
<p>Narcissa’s voice was low as she announced Hermione’s presence. Had she always been so somber? Or had time warped her into this shell of a woman? His voice was foggy as he called back, and as the door opened she found her eyes foggy too. In a blur of what must have been tears she could see his lithe frame. He was tall still, that hadn’t changed, but like his mother he seemed to teeter between human and carcass.</p>
<p>“Malfoy.” A smile crept onto her face, it tingled the corners of her mouth.</p>
<p>“Granger.” His eyes, she had missed them so. And the way her name rolled out of his mouth and into her heart. Despite all of the pain sitting so deeply in them both, joy seemed to fall out him.</p>
<p>They stood apart from each other for some time. Her feet seemed to sink into the floor as she kept her distance. Despite her somewhat valiant effort to remain unaffected, seeing him was frightening in a way she hadn’t felt before. There was a new and uncertain fear lurking her mind. Was this true and honest? Could this person in front of her be the same that she had once known? Or was he different now, as he had been for so long?</p>
<p>“You took <em>so</em> long.”</p>
<p>“I know.” He seemed ashamed, as if at any moment he might run in hide in the elaborate silks framing his windows.</p>
<p>Hermione moved across the room, her feet dragging, as if through molasses. He didn’t move, not towards her or away from her. He waited instead, patiently. He waited as she took in the sight of him, and he waited a while longer as she took his hand and began to speak. What if she disappeared? What if movement shook him from the dream of having her here.</p>
<p>“We’re different.” Said Hermione. It didn’t mean anything specific, it was just a fact that she threw into the air.</p>
<p>“Not so.” His eyes caught the light of the setting sun. “I love you all the same.”</p>
<p>“I hate that you’re like this.”</p>
<p>“Like what?”</p>
<p>“So eloquent, all the time.”</p>
<p>“How else could I, Prometheus, have caught fire?” His voice was deep as he tossed his hands into the air, his head high with the spirit of theatre.She shoved him, her hands catching in the fabric of his shirt. It was perfect. It was as it was supposed to be after all that time apart.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Post tenebras spero lucem means "After darkness, I hope for light" in latin. </p>
<p>Thank you again for taking the time.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you made it down here, thank you.</p><p>Daffodil symbolizes forgiveness.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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